


swallowing glass just to stay pure

by fallen_woman



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-01
Updated: 2010-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You two have a secret relationship.</i> SCDP makes them feel shiny and new, even when they're grasping for clients and burning accounts to the ground. Set right after 4x1, "Public Relations."</p>
            </blockquote>





	swallowing glass just to stay pure

Pete dogged the Jantzen reps down the hall, down the elevator, down the lobby until even he was ashamed of himself. When they refused the handshake at the curb, he clapped the young, chinny one on the shoulder and effected a smile that was half charm, half whimper.

He shut himself in his office for the rest of the afternoon. When he came out, walked to Creative, Peggy was sitting on the table, shoes off, as cross-legged as her tan skirt would allow. Sheets of raw copy were spread out around her, some crumpled, and her lips were curled up slightly as she read aloud, teeth exposed. For a moment Pete thought—not unkindly—of hamsters. She blinked when he kicked the table leg.

"What happened?" she asked.

"A reckoning," Pete said, grabbing the glass of whiskey by her left foot and taking a long, vehement gulp. "I was about to swing it back our way when Don ordered them out. Snapping his fingers, like they wet the furniture or something." He drank again. "I don't know."

"He doesn't want us doing sub-par work to please a client," Peggy said, taking the drained glass from him and setting it behind her. "Every ad is a reflection of us, as well." She rested her palm on an old draft of Joey's—the tussling Indian and Pilgrim, in scratchy crayon. _Marsha. John._ That stupid back-and-forth, knocking around in his head. Pete didn't mind Joey, despite the hedge-trimmer hair, squished face and alarming sweater vests. It was good for Peggy to have a playmate.

"You creatives," Pete grumbled, splaying on the orange couch. "He might as well have dipped me in gasoline and struck a match."

"You weren't the one who had to beg for bail money on Thanksgiving."

"What? Dyckmans hunt on Thanksgiving afternoon." He tugged at the cuff of his jacket, as the whiskey wound its way through him. "They didn't want more money, did they?"

"I spent the morning bargaining them down." She was definitely glaring now, knees together feet dangling off the table, and Pete wondered when her eye makeup got so obvious. "Then, Don yelled at me."

"He yells at you all the time." Pete paused. "I mean, I'm guessing. He yells at everyone." His shrug turned into a stretch, and he felt his back bones popping. "In any case, I'm sorry. Actresses, huh? I thought only the pretty ones were temperamental."

"When I was little, I wanted to be in the Nativity so badly." She slid off the table and stepped into her high heels. He stood up too, for some reason. "I was so excited I learned other people's parts, just in case."

"What, were you the Virgin Mary?" he said, before he realized—and maybe that was some sick kind of progress, forgetting which things were forbidden—and Peggy's face was so placid, not even a ripple, that maybe she had forgotten it, too.

She picked up the empty glass, and the paper stuck to it. She peeled the paper off, wadded it into a ball, and put it inside the cup. He skirted his eyes over the blue wall, at the silver clock that was more form than function. In one hour, he would be home, with Sugarberry ham and Trudy and Trudy's new haircut and spiced milk punch.

They were shoulder to shoulder in front of a doorway too narrow, so he let her go first. "A boy got measles, the night before," Peggy said in the hall, dirty glass still absurdly clasped in her hands. "I was a king, I think." She looked through him, like she was dreaming up another advertising idea, something that would have her writing in tongues in the middle of the night. "Anyways, good night, Pete."

"Anyways," Pete said, turning, stepping so briskly on the SCDP carpet that even in the empty office, he couldn't hear her walking away.


End file.
